Control units are mostly made up of a circuit board, on which electronic components are placed, and a housing. In engine control units, a male multipoint connector is usually mounted on the circuit board, in order to produce the electrical connection between a wire harness plug and the circuit board. The male multipoint connector thus represents an additional component in the assembly of the control unit.
So-called electrical direct contacts are also known in which the male multipoint connector is omitted and the individual poles of the wire harness plug are contacted directly on the circuit board. For this, electrical contact surfaces (“lands”) are provided, which are contacted directly by contact elements of the male multipoint connector. The contact surfaces of a direct contact plug-in connection are mostly positioned in two rows, namely in respectively one row on the upper and the lower side of the circuit board edge. By contrast to a contact male multipoint connector, which may be made up of a plurality of contact rows, in a direct contact plug-in connection there may thus be the disadvantage of a low number of pins. If the possibility of mounting contact surfaces on the upper and lower side of the circuit board edge has already been utilized, up until now there existed only the possibility of diminishing the distance between the pins. This possibility is usually declined, however, for reasons of reliability.